Newsweek poll: Social cons love Rudy, have no idea he’s not a social con

I blogged about this two weeks ago when Gallup polled on it but it’s important enough to warrant a follow-up. First, the good news for Rudy supporters. Newsweek survey says:

Note the trend, too. Now click, scroll down, and take a long look at questions 22 through 27. Re: abortion, Gallup found 21% of Republicans thought he was pro-life and 36% didn’t know what his position is; the Newsweek poll finds those numbers at 11% and 49%, respectively, among social cons and 12% and 51% among Republicans generally. Despite all the press lately, for a lot of people the hard news still has yet to break.

Question 25 hints at how bad the fallout might be. Demanding licenses for gun ownership would, surprisingly, help him on balance — if the issue is taken in isolation. Combine it with his stance on abortion and civil unions and it might have the effect of hardening opposition among social cons who otherwise would consider voting for him. As for question 27, news like this won’t help:

“There’s obviously a little problem that exists between me and his wife,” the younger Mr. Giuliani said. “And we’re trying to figure that out. But as of right now it’s not working as well as we would like.”…

He said that he and his father had recently begun trying to reconcile. “For a while there, we weren’t talking, for a decent amount of time,” Andrew said. “But lately we’ve been having more contact and trying to figure things out.”

Ace is at CPAC and has anecdotal evidence that social cons don’t care what Giuliani’s domestic policies are. He’s the hawk of hawks, baptized by fire on 9/11, and they want him because they think he’ll win the war. Period.

I leave you with this dry-heave-inducing passage from a WashTimes article whose lede reveals the paper to be squarely in the tank for their man Mitt:

In interviews afterward, some attendees said Mr. Giuliani lost momentum when he heaped lavish praise on Abraham Lincoln.

While many conservatives regard the Civil War president as the spiritual founder of the Republican Party, others deeply resent him as a man who ruthlessly suspended constitutional rights and freedoms in order to militarily challenge the South’s belief in its right to secede. Some saw similar disdain for individuals’ rights in Mr. Giuliani’s successful war on crime in New York City.

Update: KP was at CPAC and confirms that most of the social cons she spoke to didn’t know Giuliani’s track record:

But at the end of the day, probably more of them will end up being like the members of the Bible study group that Ace describes, who despite being “strongly pro-life” support Giuliani because they think he will keep them safe. What strikes me as strange about this is I can almost guarantee that these are the same people who would ask me how I could be a Christian and a Democrat, since the majority of Democrats are pro-choice. Yet, they overlook their pro-life views for Giuliani and seem fairly unconflicted about it.

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